Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/177

 CHAP. III. THE CITY FOKMED, 171 Near by, on the little hill of the Areopagus, the pro- tecting god was Ares. At Marathon it was Hercules ; at Prasiae an Apollo, another Apollo at Phlius, the Dios- curi at Cephalus, and thus of all the other cantons.' Every family, as it had its god and its altar, had also its chief. When Pausanias visited Attica, he found in the little villages ancient traditions which had been perpetuated with the worship ; and these traditions informed him that every little burgh had had its king before the time when Cecrops reigned at Athens. Was not this a memorial of a distant age, when the great patriarchal families, like the Celtic clans, had each its hereditary chief, who was at the same time priest and judge? Some hundred little societies then lived isolated in the country, recognizing no political or re- ligious bond among them, having each its territory, often at war, and living so completely separated that marriage between them was not always permitted.* But their needs or their sentiments brought them togetiier. Insensibly they joined in little groups of four, five, or six. Thus we find in the traditions that ♦.he four villages of Marathon united to adore the same Delphian Apollo ; the men of the Piraeus, Phalerum, and two neighboring burghs, united and built a temple to Hercules.^ In the course of time these many little states were reduced to twelve confederations. This change, by which the people passed from the patriarchal family state to a society somewhat more extensive, was attributed by tradition to the efforts of Cecrops: we are merely to understand by this, that it was not ac- • Pausanias, I. 15 ; 31, 37, II. 18. 3 Id., ibid., 14. Pollux, VI. 105. Stephen of Byzantium,
 * Plutarch, Theseus, 13.